For years now, California legislators have been trying for years to pry cellphones from motorists’ hands any way they can. First, they said we couldn’t talk on them while driving. Then, we could no longer text while driving. Eventually, new laws banned us from holding them in our hand, even at traffic stops.

Now, the state is being pressured to enact the Mother of All Talking-on-Phone-While-Driving Prohibitions: don’t you dare even open your mouth while behind the wheel.

This week, California officials were urged by federal officials to become the first state to ban even hands-free use of electronic devices by motorists.

At a kickoff event in Sacramento on Wednesday for Distracted Driving Awareness Month and California Teen Safe Driving Week, the Sacramento Bee reports, the head of safety recommendations for the National Transportation Safety Board urged the Golden State’s lawmakers to pass just such a groundbreaking ban.

Nicholas Worrell called the practice of talking while driving a “battle of self-defense” for young people, the Bee reported.

The kickoff was organized by the CHP, the NTSB and Impact Teen Drivers, a Sacramento-based nonprofit.

“Hands-free is not risk-free,” Worrell, who heads up the NTSB’s Office of Safety Recommendations and Communications, said according to the Bee. So far, no state has followed up on the feds’ recommendation of a ban for all hand-held and hands-free portable electronic devices. But, said Worrell, “If California will lead, the NTSB stands ready to support them.”

Calls for such bans on hands-free chatting while driving have become louder. Ken Kolosh, manager of statistics for the National Safety Council, told Consumer Reports on Thursday that states have been slow to act on prohibiting the behavior because it’s become the new normal, and because it seems so safe and innocuous compared with doing banned things like texting or talking into the phone while behind the wheel.

Safety advocates say the solutions for preventing highway deaths are well-known, the report says. “Seat-belt use, for example, is higher in states with strong enforcement. States with tougher drunken-driving laws have lower death rates. Most states ban driver texting, but the laws don’t capture other ways people use their phones. The NTSB has called for a ban on the use of handheld devices while driving.”

California is often the national leader in trendsetting legislation, whether it’s for privacy laws, carbon offsets or immigration reform. Now, eight years after first recommending no hands-free talking while driving, the NTSB is continuing its push to get California to take the lead forward. The Bee reports that the most recent California cellphone law, which was enacted in 2017, bans drivers from holding cellphones at all. A bill proposed by Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, in February would add a point to a driver’s license for being caught on a cellphone while driving, said the report. If passed, it would go into effect in 2021.

Speakers at the kickoff event, however, cautioned that such a sea change in driver behavior would not come quickly or easily.

“With cellphones, it’s going to be generational to teach,” said CHP Officer Michael Bradley. “Just like seat belts – when seat belts first came in the early ‘80s in California. people were like, ‘You’re violating my right.’” But, the Bee reported, as of 2016, about 97 percent of Californians complied with seat belt laws.

“As generations learn and adapt to the law, then (reducing distracted driving) will become easier,” Bradley said.

New technology inside cars may actually be contributing to an increase in distracted driving, according to Bradley. Because newer vehicles often feature touchscreens instead of knobs and buttons with specific functions, drivers have to take their eyes off the road more often to do things like change the radio station or the temperature.

“I think you’re actually more distracted than when you had hard buttons when you could kind of feel and look at the road. Now you have to look at the screen to find which screen you’re on,” Bradley said. “You see a lot of people looking down towards their dash. That’s what I’m seeing more than anything else.”